The Way We Live Now: Misprioritized. We blow our emergency cash on suits. We spend all our time thinking about the lottery. We acquire stress ulcers while our wealth actually grows. Straighten up and fly right—for America.

I tell ya: Priorities are backwards these days. Take Belgium, as the most obvious example. You would think that the citizens of Belgium would be putting their brainpower towards dreaming up exotic financial instruments that can help their little country diversify out of the waffle business. Especially Belgian mathematicians, should be doing that! Instead what are they doing? Calculating the odds of the national lottery pulling the same numbers twice. It's four million to one, okay. Now go invent some derivatives.